1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a process of forming a thin film pattern and a manufacturing process of a device, an electro-optical apparatus, and an electronic apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
In processing a device having an electronic circuit, an integrated circuit and the like, for example, photolithography can be employed. The photolithography can be made up of coating a photosensitive material called a photoresist on a substrate pretreated with a conductive film, irradiating it with a circuit pattern and developing it, applying photo-etching to the conductive film according to a photoresist pattern, thus producing a thin film wiring pattern. Large-scale equipment and complicated processes, such as vacuum equipment, are required for this photolithography, and further, since efficiency of using materials is of the order of a few percentage points, most of the materials are necessarily discarded. Manufacturing cost is thus high.
On the other hand, there are proposed a process of ejecting liquid droplets, in which a liquid material is spewed out in droplets from a droplet ejection head, and a forming process of a wiring pattern on the substrate by using a so-called ink-jet method (for example, refer to patent document 1). According to this process, a wiring pattern forming ink, which is a functional liquid with conductive particulates, such as metallic particulates dispersed therein, is directly applied in pattern to the substrate, followed by heat treatment and laser irradiation for conversion thereof to a thin-film conductive pattern. According to this process, photolithography is made unnecessary, thus greatly simplifying a process and bringing about an additional advantage of less consumption of raw materials. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,132,248.